5 Secrets of the Photoshop Crop Tool

If you’re used to clicking the crop tool dragging the tool over your image and pressing Enter, it may surprise you to know that there are other options that you can use when cropping in Photoshop.

Here are my five “best-kept secrets” of the Photoshop crop tool.

1. Rotate as you Crop

When you drag the crop marquee over an image, you can rotate it by letting go the mouse button and drag on one of the corners of the marquee to rotate it. When you double click you will rotate and crop the image at the one time.

2. Perspective Crop

You can fix perspective at the same time as cropping by first dragging a crop marquee over the image. Let go the mouse button and click the Perspective checkbox on the toolbar. Now when you drag on a corner of the marquee the corners move independently of each other allowing you to position the marquee along the lines you want to crop to in the image. When you crop the image it is cropped and distorted to create a rectangular image. You can use this to fix distorted perspective in your images.

3. The Crop that’s not a Crop

Once you have selected an area to crop, you do not actually have to crop it, and you can, instead, simply hide the cropped area rather than permanently deleting it.

To do this, you need to be working on an image layer and not the background layer so double-click the background layer and convert it to a regular layer. Drag a crop rectangle over the image and from the tool options bar, select the Hide option. When you double click the cropped area will be hidden but still accessible.

You can now select the Move tool and reposition the image inside the area that you have cropped it to. This is useful when you want to crop an image to 4 x 6 in size and you want to experiment with different ways to compose the image within this area.

4 Create and Use Crop Presets

When you click the Crop tool you can choose from various presets by clicking the dropdown list to the immediate right of the tool in the tool options bar. Click a preset and drag on the image to create the crop marquee. You can turn a portrait crop to a landscape one (or vice versa) by selecting the preset, drag over the image and then rotate the marquee ninety degrees by holding the Shift key as you do so to constrain the rotation to multiples of 15 degrees.

To create your own preset, set the width, height and resolution in the tool options bar and then click the fly-out menu for the crop tool and select New Tool Preset. Give your preset a name and click Ok. It will appear at the foot of the presets list and you can select and use it anytime in the future.

5 Crop to the Same Size

To crop two images to the same size, select the Crop tool and make active the image you want to match the size of. Click the Front Image button on the tool options bar to configure the Crop tool with the dimensions of the front image.

Select the image you want to crop and drag a crop rectangle over that image. When you double-click to finish, the image will be cropped to the same size and resolution as the original image – in some situations this may mean that the image will have increased in size.

Warning:

If the Crop tool isn’t working as expected, press Esc to exit the tool and click the Clear button to reset it – some settings are sticky and you may not remember you had set it to special crop settings earlier in an editing session.

Next time you go to crop an image, remember that there are more options for the crop tool than may initially meet the eye.

Helen Bradley
is a Lifestyle journalist who divides her time between the real and digital worlds, picking the best from both. She writes and produces video instruction for Photoshop and digital photography for magazines and online providers world wide. She has also written four books on photo crafts and blogs at Projectwoman.com.

Thanks for the tips! I do have a strange question, though, wondering if anyone has experienced this.

I use Photoshop Elements 7 on Vista. Every now and then, my Crop functionality locks up. That is, when I try to click in the toolbar — say, to change the ratio of the crop from “no restrictions” to “8×10” — nothing happens. The little drop-down menu changes color from gray to lighter gray, but no drop-down menu appears. Hitting Reset does nothing; I have to completely close the Editor and re-launch it for it to be like normal.

@Ed: Is there any tick in the toolbar, this may be required to finish the crop. It may also happen if you try to transform any shapes or layers. Just checking – you may or may not know this. If not – I have never had this problem. Hope I helped.

A very nice post. Very concise and well written. I learned something new in a very short time. I’m looking forward to more. One thing I always do before cropping in Photoshop is make a copy of the image for later if needed. Also, if you’re working in camera raw, cropping there first will allow you to go back and recover the original image later by clicking the crop button again.

Zack

Very helpful tips as always! The example photos look really familiar. I wonder if they were taken in Singapore.

@tyler – no, there’s nothing. I can do everything as normal in crop, except change the stuff on the toolbar. So I can make a crop box in the image, resize it, even actually crop – but I cannot change the options such as “no restrictions” or “8×10” or “photo ratio.”

I posted this on the Adobe forums, and someone said this is a common problem. She recommended to use the rectangular marquee selection and then use Image>Crop as a workaround.

@Chuck: The crop tool will have to resample when it resizes to a different size image. For example you can make the crop tool upsize an image (as mentioned in the text) or downsize it by setting the crop size and resolution. In this case it is my understanding that the resampling algorithm used is the one you have configured in your preferences. Choose Edit > Preferences > General and check the Image Interpolation setting to see what it is set to.

@Bryce – I still do!

@Michelle/@zack.. good catch, yes, they are all from Singapore.

Anne-Mie

I got a 6th tip. You can use also the crop tool to add canvas. First drag a box with the crop tool. When you move your marque outside the picture, and crop it will add extra pixels.

Pssequimages

Thank you—wonderful Crop tool secrets. #3 (Crop that’s not a Crop) is really slick! Love how that worked, even though I almost always work in camera raw when I crop a photo.

Having been using photoshop for +10 years, I can count the number of times I’ve used the crop tool on one hand — usually selecting the area (M), then Image –> Crop instead. Now I feel dumb knowing that it is actually a powerful tool. thanks! 🙂

One more to add to the list: I often need to have a bigger artspace when working on web images. A quick way to make your palette larger is hit the F key twice to go to full screen mode (This is better for many other things too like zooming) Now, if you crop, you can crop larger than your image and it will expand the palette and fill with whatever background color.

My favorite crop tip is this:
1. Expand your current window to be larger than the current canvas size (you’ll see the grey border around your canvas)
2. Use the crop tool
3. Drag one of the sides of your crop marquee outside the canvas (into the grey area) to increase your canvas size.

There is surely a sixth use for the Crop tool viz. increase the canvas size. This is done by dragging the Crop tool over the whole image. Then grab a corner box and you will find it can be dragged beyond the image. Do this for other sides and when you click the tick canvas is made to the colour of the background colour. Clearly you need to maximise the image beforehand by clicking on the small square at the top right of the image.

If you want to use the ‘Front Image’ option without resampling your image, just change your units from pixels to inches and leave the ‘Resolution’ field blank. The cropped image will maintain the proper proportions and will have proportionately fewer pixels per inch, but will not be resampled.

Very good post, but it doesn’t address a problem that I find devilish in cropping, which is what to do with the little “perspective” star in the middle of the picture.
More specifically, when I shoot a picture from an angle -a building, for example — and want to crop it to appear as if it was shot from directly in front of the building, I am easily able, using the “perspective” tool, to give the building perfect vertical and horizontal lines. But I am often left, particularly when I have shot from a sharply acute angle (as in a narrow street) with a messed-up perspective; i.e., with a situation in which the far side of the picture is disproportionately large. I assume this can be corrected with the little star: if not, how CAN this problem be fixed?

I couldn’t find a solution to my problem here – how to constrain the crop to a ratio (3:2) but without resizing. I found a solution here. Just put the image size to 100% or larger, make an initial selection with the crop tool of a small number of pixels (e.g. 300×200), then press SHIFT while dragging the corner control handles.

Some Older Comments

how after all of these years using PS did i miss the hide button! question though, how do you unhide if you wish to increase the size of the image after making the crop too small?

KaraFebruary 27, 2013 05:23 pm

Thank you so much for the great tips!!

Lisa TrocchiFebruary 27, 2013 06:18 am

Thank you for the tip on perspective - I had tried it before without it working - I think you just explained it more simply and hey presto!

DeniseJanuary 29, 2013 03:03 am

Thank you for these really helpful tips. I have come back to this article several times. Who knew the crop could do so much!

Alex SmithJanuary 19, 2013 03:10 am

I have two comments about crop. 1. after using the crop tool where I have attempted a reverse crop, and when I save the file, It will only be saved as a tiff file. Why can't I save it as a jpeg file?
2. When I use the crop tool, my display is presented with only the corner handles, there are no side handles displayed. Is this a problem with my photoshop program?

JamesNovember 28, 2012 02:49 am

November 27, 2012 – Thank you! These ideas were a great birthday present! Very helpful and much appreciated.

Ellie AbneyApril 24, 2012 07:52 am

I have a question - I'm cropping my photos in photoshop and trying to put them on a new page. After the image is crossed and I bring it to the new page, the image zooms in. What am I doing wrong? Thank you!

HolyDoom WitchNovember 15, 2011 10:13 am

Guess what, Ms. Bradley... I was unable to find the dragging handle! And "Clear" was what I was looking for. Though since it came in the end, I thought I won't get a solution here!

Cool! :D

ChrisOctober 29, 2011 07:50 am

Helen Bradley is the best.
No filler material. RIght to the point with perfect examples.
1..2...3...BOOM!
Now you know everything about the topic.

Is there a way to find all articles written by her at DPS?

katSeptember 21, 2011 03:24 am

I'm pretty good at cropping but not tried at an angle yet. I dont seem to grasp how to crop and enlage. When i try to save it it goes back to small size. Or if i blow it up nice and big it goes too grainey :(

Helen BradleyJuly 8, 2011 02:19 am

@Donna.. you need a different tool for this job. You need the Lens Correction Filter - in Photoshop choose Filter > Lens Correction. That will let you straighten and fix the perspective issues without losing the parts of the image you want to keep.

I'll try and knock out a post for you on it to show you how it's done. I just checked the site and I can't see we've ever talked about this tool so it's probably a good time and the feature is in both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements and it works the same way in each.

Helen

DonnaJuly 7, 2011 07:56 am

I just learned about using the crop tool to fix perspective but I'm frustrated that it crops my image when the correction is applied. For example, I want to "square" my entire image using a window or door as a reference but I don't want to end up with JUST a photo of a perfectly square door (or window). I want the entire house to be in perspective.

Any idea what I'm doing wrong? Thanks in advance.

Donna

SwapnaaApril 20, 2011 05:30 am

Brilliant! Super useful (and usable). Thanks for taking the trouble to create such a useful document!

ScottApril 14, 2011 05:31 pm

There are so many images on the Web. How can you know whether an image is original or has been edited by Photoshop? Check it out using Photoshopped Image Killer. Specify your image's URL and the site will do analysis for you automatically.

GunayOctober 22, 2010 05:35 pm

Is there anyway of cropping an imaging without losing its sharpness? I mean when you crop the image and in a preview thumbnails you see not a nice picture, but looks nice once you open it

RahulJuly 31, 2010 12:00 pm

Great guide. I'm running Photoshop version 8 and I'm missing the middle little box on both sides of the "marquee" when I use the crop tool, so I cannot adjust the size of the width or height alone (they're not mutually exclusive since I can only manipulate the four corners). How do I get the middle boxes to appear?

On a separate note, the photo of the Hindu temple deities is amazing! Do you have any more photos of that temple exterior?

NickJune 12, 2010 12:12 am

Hey, great tips. What I use the crop tool for however, is not mentioned here.
Maybe because it seems simple, but it's cropping to aspect ratio.

It's a great way to chose an aspect ratio for the canvas and then resize at the same time.
Cropping can be used, not only to make an image smaller, but bigger too.
After you drag the box, you can resize your window (and zoom out) so you see the rest of the canvas, then size the crop tool so it's outside of the canvas.
Once you crop, the canvas will be scaled to new size and aspect ratio, and the image will be filled.

nice tips you share here - many thanks! - will certainly be stopping on back!

Itsashirt T shirtsJanuary 16, 2010 06:01 am

@sean: Corel is not better than photoshop, learn to work with it :)

MiLNovember 22, 2009 12:29 am

Yeah, great article...and very simple =)
thanks!

SeanOctober 9, 2009 12:29 am

the crop tool is rubbish, what if i want to set it to 300px width what do i have to do? and why cant i set my measurements after i dragged the crop out its so stupid, Corel Paint Shop Pro is better!

GrlafraidOctober 1, 2009 02:55 am

I'm trying to do #4, creating and using the cop preset sizes. I am using CS4 on a Mac. I can get it create the preset, but when I click and drag over the image, nothing happens. Any ideas as to why?

Thanks.

Jack FussellSeptember 14, 2009 02:03 am

Thanks for the tips!

Reggie ThomsonSeptember 11, 2009 09:42 am

I couldn't find a solution to my problem here - how to constrain the crop to a ratio (3:2) but without resizing. I found a solution here. Just put the image size to 100% or larger, make an initial selection with the crop tool of a small number of pixels (e.g. 300x200), then press SHIFT while dragging the corner control handles.

Marie France BoisvertAugust 22, 2009 05:37 am

Thank you so much , for this information. So many useful tips
Must have taken you lots of time

zarithAugust 13, 2009 08:53 pm

thank you for the tips ;)

Don ReevesAugust 12, 2009 11:37 am

It's the simplest things that get over looked are usually the most important to creativity.
Great article! Thanks for sharing.

Of all the things in the thick book that comes with photoshop software this is one of the must read sections, along with layering.

VenusAugust 11, 2009 10:18 am

I use this crop tool a lot but I didn't know that there are still many ways on how to use it effectively. Thanks for the tips :-)

My TruthAugust 11, 2009 08:06 am

I appreciate your taking the time to put this together. It looks like you spent quite a bit of time, screenshots and everything! Thanks for the info, it was very helpful.

Alex RamsayAugust 11, 2009 01:33 am

Dear Michael,

Assuming you're using CS3 or better, go to Filter/Distort/Lens Correction/transform horizontal perspective (and do it in 16-bit)

Regards,
Alex

Michael PadnosAugust 9, 2009 11:02 am

Very good post, but it doesn't address a problem that I find devilish in cropping, which is what to do with the little "perspective" star in the middle of the picture.
More specifically, when I shoot a picture from an angle -a building, for example -- and want to crop it to appear as if it was shot from directly in front of the building, I am easily able, using the "perspective" tool, to give the building perfect vertical and horizontal lines. But I am often left, particularly when I have shot from a sharply acute angle (as in a narrow street) with a messed-up perspective; i.e., with a situation in which the far side of the picture is disproportionately large. I assume this can be corrected with the little star: if not, how CAN this problem be fixed?

Many thanks,

Maree JamiesonAugust 8, 2009 05:34 pm

Thanks so much for these tips. I can't believe that I've never found this out before and I'm an avid Photosahop user. I always use the selection tool. Now I know.

JamesAugust 8, 2009 05:33 pm

Cool tips.. Thanks.. !!!!

robbyAugust 8, 2009 02:36 pm

more ways to crop "annoying" parts :) thanks

Matt BarnesAugust 8, 2009 06:55 am

If you want to use the 'Front Image' option without resampling your image, just change your units from pixels to inches and leave the 'Resolution' field blank. The cropped image will maintain the proper proportions and will have proportionately fewer pixels per inch, but will not be resampled.

ParrisAugust 8, 2009 04:32 am

Sometimes I think I know everything. Normally doesn't last too long. At least three times in the article above I went "Ohhh..!" Thanks!

SanthoshAugust 8, 2009 02:35 am

I never knew about this options. Thanks for sharing the tips, cropping will be more fun now. Thank you.

Peter ReadAugust 8, 2009 02:30 am

There is surely a sixth use for the Crop tool viz. increase the canvas size. This is done by dragging the Crop tool over the whole image. Then grab a corner box and you will find it can be dragged beyond the image. Do this for other sides and when you click the tick canvas is made to the colour of the background colour. Clearly you need to maximise the image beforehand by clicking on the small square at the top right of the image.

WallaceAugust 8, 2009 12:30 am

Such great tips, even for an old pro!!! Thank you!

JasonAugust 8, 2009 12:26 am

My favorite crop tip is this:
1. Expand your current window to be larger than the current canvas size (you'll see the grey border around your canvas)
2. Use the crop tool
3. Drag one of the sides of your crop marquee outside the canvas (into the grey area) to increase your canvas size.

Bridget CasasAugust 8, 2009 12:13 am

Thank you Helen. There are a few things here I was not aware of!

Les SchonbrunAugust 7, 2009 10:39 pm

I would love to have information like this for each of the PS tools!

JeffAugust 7, 2009 09:58 pm

One more to add to the list: I often need to have a bigger artspace when working on web images. A quick way to make your palette larger is hit the F key twice to go to full screen mode (This is better for many other things too like zooming) Now, if you crop, you can crop larger than your image and it will expand the palette and fill with whatever background color.

Brandon MulnixAugust 7, 2009 08:49 pm

I have been using Photoshop for 6 years to edit Senior portraitsand I never knew about the perspective tool. That rocks! Thanks so much for sharing this article.

Frank WestAugust 7, 2009 08:27 pm

I use crop more often than I probably should and yet I didn't know all 5 of these points, thanks for saving me time!

atomikuAugust 7, 2009 08:21 pm

Thank you very much :)

tbSMITHAugust 7, 2009 08:10 pm

Having been using photoshop for +10 years, I can count the number of times I've used the crop tool on one hand -- usually selecting the area (M), then Image --> Crop instead. Now I feel dumb knowing that it is actually a powerful tool. thanks! :)

Sheldon (Marketing Consultant, Tauranga)August 7, 2009 12:43 pm

Freaking marvelous. Thanks very much!

PssequimagesAugust 7, 2009 05:00 am

Thank you---wonderful Crop tool secrets. #3 (Crop that's not a Crop) is really slick! Love how that worked, even though I almost always work in camera raw when I crop a photo.

Anne-MieAugust 7, 2009 03:48 am

I got a 6th tip. You can use also the crop tool to add canvas. First drag a box with the crop tool. When you move your marque outside the picture, and crop it will add extra pixels.

Helen BradleyAugust 7, 2009 01:53 am

@Chuck: The crop tool will have to resample when it resizes to a different size image. For example you can make the crop tool upsize an image (as mentioned in the text) or downsize it by setting the crop size and resolution. In this case it is my understanding that the resampling algorithm used is the one you have configured in your preferences. Choose Edit > Preferences > General and check the Image Interpolation setting to see what it is set to.

@Bryce - I still do!

@Michelle/@zack.. good catch, yes, they are all from Singapore.

Laura HigginsAugust 7, 2009 01:49 am

Awesome tips being new to photo shop I aprreciate them!

RJAugust 7, 2009 01:45 am

Hi?it's a good article.
Is the picture in Tip 2 from Singapore? Or maybe all of them?

ChuckAugust 7, 2009 12:08 am

Anybody know if the crop tool re-samples when it resizes?

EdAugust 6, 2009 11:50 pm

@tyler - no, there's nothing. I can do everything as normal in crop, except change the stuff on the toolbar. So I can make a crop box in the image, resize it, even actually crop - but I cannot change the options such as "no restrictions" or "8x10" or "photo ratio."

I posted this on the Adobe forums, and someone said this is a common problem. She recommended to use the rectangular marquee selection and then use Image>Crop as a workaround.

Bryce RoneyAugust 6, 2009 05:02 pm

Gosh, I hadn't heard of Helen Bradley since she used to write for PC User Magazine in Australia.

ErinAugust 6, 2009 02:59 pm

Great tips...wish they worked in PSE7. :(

MichelleAugust 6, 2009 02:57 pm

This was useful, thanks - I'll especially try out tip 3. And I'm pretty sure the photos are from Singapore!

Benjamin SolahAugust 6, 2009 02:39 pm

I love the crop tool. It's one of the things that has improved my photography massively over the past year or so. These tips should help to enhance them.

Redd DyverAugust 6, 2009 01:57 pm

i you use the preset sizes, easiest way to rotate 90º is to just click the lil button between the two dimensions.

artAugust 6, 2009 12:00 pm

thanks! presets are cool

but sometimes I crop with rotate but it rotate not working. why?

AmandalynnAugust 6, 2009 11:33 am

Very nice. I'm pretty proficient with photoshop, but I was unaware of the perspective crop!

afAugust 6, 2009 10:33 am

This was really useful, thanks

ZackAugust 6, 2009 07:30 am

Very helpful tips as always! The example photos look really familiar. I wonder if they were taken in Singapore.

Mike BAugust 6, 2009 07:24 am

Helen,

A very nice post. Very concise and well written. I learned something new in a very short time. I'm looking forward to more. One thing I always do before cropping in Photoshop is make a copy of the image for later if needed. Also, if you're working in camera raw, cropping there first will allow you to go back and recover the original image later by clicking the crop button again.

TylerAugust 6, 2009 06:04 am

@Ed: Is there any tick in the toolbar, this may be required to finish the crop. It may also happen if you try to transform any shapes or layers. Just checking - you may or may not know this. If not - I have never had this problem. Hope I helped.

Stephen BatemanAugust 6, 2009 05:00 am

That was ridiculously useful. Thanks!

Manuel CasanovaAugust 6, 2009 03:42 am

Excellent!!. It's god to learn some new tricks a day

EdAugust 6, 2009 02:55 am

Thanks for the tips! I do have a strange question, though, wondering if anyone has experienced this.

I use Photoshop Elements 7 on Vista. Every now and then, my Crop functionality locks up. That is, when I try to click in the toolbar -- say, to change the ratio of the crop from "no restrictions" to "8x10" -- nothing happens. The little drop-down menu changes color from gray to lighter gray, but no drop-down menu appears. Hitting Reset does nothing; I have to completely close the Editor and re-launch it for it to be like normal.

I've only noticed this on Crop -- not on any other tool. Any thoughts?